 NEWS BYTES
Federal officials recently charged two men with fraud and bribery for their involvement in a ring that obtained commercial driver’s licenses for unqualified immigrants. Authorities say that the two men would arrange for immigrants in Illinois to take licensing exams in Florida, under the supervision of examiners who had been bribed.
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The Death Penalty Information Center recently issued sweeping criticism of the treatment of foreign nationals facing the death penalty in the US. According to the Center, only four of the 123 noncitizens who have been on US death rows were informed of their right to legal assistance from their consulates, a right guaranteed under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. In the most recent case, the state of Oklahoma has delayed the execution of a Mexican national who was on death row for ten years Before the Mexican Consulate learned of it. The Center says there are currently 97 foreign nationals on US death rows. The US has come under fire before for Vienna Convention violations. Earlier this year the International Court of Justice found the US violated the Convention in the Arizona execution of two German brothers.
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Authorities in Miami have accused two men of smuggling a Cuban national into the US and then holding him for an ,000 ransom. One of those charged was an escaped federal prisoner who had been serving a sentence because of a drug conviction.
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A Mexican man was sentenced to more than 21 years in prison after being found guilty of brutalizing undocumented immigrants he had helped smuggle into the US. Carlos Garcia Serrano, along with five other, was found guilty last year. According to officials, when the migrants could not pay the smuggling fees, the smugglers became violent, repeatedly raping two women and torturing two male victims. The leader of the smuggling ring was sentenced to life in prison last month.
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The address for filing applications under the Legal Immigration and Family Equity Act has been changed. The new address is INS Service Center, P.O. Box 7219, Chicago, IL 60680-7219.
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A federal judge recently revoked the citizenship of Mykola Wasylyk, who is accused of being a guard at two Nazi slave labor camps in Poland during World War Two. According to the judge, there was substantial and undisputed evidence of his service on behalf of the Nazis. Wasylyk is the 65th person to be stripped of US citizenship because of Nazi activities since the creation of the Office of Special Investigations was created in 1979.
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